Description
Why didn't the civil service act on warnings about combustible building materials?
You’ve probably not heard of Brian Martin but he’s central to the story of Grenfell. The civil servant responsible for the fire safety section of the building regulation guidance, he has described himself as the “single point of failure”.
Kate talks to someone who tried to raise the alarm with him, and asks why he didn’t act on warnings about dangerous cladding.
Under the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, this was a time of deregulation and cutting red tape. Did these attitudes to health and safety prevent action being taken?
Presenter: Kate Lamble
Producer: Josephine Casserly
Production coordinator: Janet Staples
Audio engineers: James Beard and Gareth Jones
Story consultant: Simon Maybin
Editor: Penny Murphy
The Inquiry’s Phase 2 report was released this week, distilling 400 days of evidence and more than three hundred thousand documents. The report concluded the fire which killed 72 people was the culmination of “decades of failure” by government and others in the construction industry. It set out a...
Published 09/06/24
In the early hours of the 14th of June 2017, a fire broke out in a tower block in West London. This fire was both a personal tragedy and a national scandal.
It began in Flat 16 of Grenfell Tower. Before long, the flames reached combustible cladding and insulation, which had been installed on the...
Published 09/06/24